Zephyr

Built to one reference and fitted to it. Every colour was sampled off the reference's own sky, and the outlines of the two cloud banks were measured from it: the left one high and falling away toward the middle, the right one lower, so the middle stays open for a headline. Overhead, cirrus fans out in soft veils and fine strands, the way parallel bands of high cloud converge in perspective.

The cumulus is built the way a painter builds it: rounded puffs at three sizes, heaped inside each bank's outline and merged into one mass, each lit from above, so the tops catch the sun and the bellies fall into a blue-grey shade. The banks drift slowly and their puffs swell and settle, but the outlines hold, so the open middle never fills in.

A monarch butterfly lives on it. Left alone it wanders the frame, zig-zagging and gliding now and then. Move your cursor and it follows. Stop, and it comes in, slows its wingbeat and lands on the cursor's tip, where it sits folding and opening its wings until you move again. On touch, tap and it lands where you tapped. With reduced motion you get the still sky with the butterfly resting on it.

Preview only. This background's code isn't offered to copy.